


it will be spring again

by akaneboshi



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, I just think that seven deserves a lot of hugs, fmc has arbitrarily been named, third person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24586711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaneboshi/pseuds/akaneboshi
Summary: 707 route, ninth day.“He looks just like you,” she says quietly, a hand reaching out as if to trace the wide brilliant smile on his face. Saeyoung remembers Rika’s narration -He had just seen a canary, Luciel. He said it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.
Relationships: 707 | Choi Luciel/Main Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	it will be spring again

There has to be a way.

Saeyoung tries to still the tremble of his hands as he stares at the mess of bolts and parts that is Robocat. The creation is motionless, for all intents a corpse at the moment - _I made it_ , he reminds himself, twisting the wrench. _I killed it, too_.

“Seven.”

He freezes at the sound of Jiyeon’s voice. She’s been watching him this entire time, he knows, has felt her gaze over the screen of her phone - but he’d been willing to pretend not to notice if she kept her distance. He opens his mouth, dry. He closes it again when nothing works its way out.

“Seven,” she says again, quieter. Somehow this is the one that sticks, working its way into the cogs of his brain. His breath stutters. He knows she notices.

“Don’t talk to me,” he hisses, remembering Vanderwood and the calm way his hand had splayed over Seven’s shoulder when he was taking him to task about who their clients were. “The person you think you like isn’t home right now.”

He must be out of his mind. He has to be. Even having secured the apartment and rewritten the algorithms, even knowing Saeran is unlikely to return for now - he hasn’t cast a single eye over the work waiting for him. Knows his car was bugged, too; Seoul is only so big, and there are only so many things he can do to throw them off his trail.

He’s a dead man walking. He can’t bring himself to mind.

There’s a thud as Jiyeon sets her phone down. “You need to stop speaking for me,” she tells him, very plainly. “I see who you are, Seven. Even if I don’t know your story.”

She gestures at his hand - he glances down, and realises to his horror that he has been stroking the smooth metal of Robocat’s back, almost as if comforting an animal in pain. “Talk to me, Seven,” she pleads. “Please.”

He hesitates. From the ground Robocat’s shiny aquamarine eyes - cubic zirconia he’d sourced specifically to match the shade of Elizabeth’s - glint at him, as if to say he’s been caught out in his lie about lacking sentimentality.

The panic builds in his chest. He wants to laugh. _Of course_ , he thinks wistfully, picking up a screw and sliding it into place with tender care. _Even something this simple. I can’t do this._

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he says softly. It’s a halfhearted final attempt. He wants her to press. Wants her to be the person who tells him she sees him. Wants to exist, for once.

She takes a step closer, gaze even. “But I want to.” Pause. “If you’d let me.”

He knows he’ll regret this, but there is a selfishness that seizes him whole, soured by the sting of V’s betrayal. “I’ll - let you know who he is,” he tells her, the words out of his mouth before he processes he’s made the decision. She shouldn’t come any closer to him. He wants so desperately for her to.

Reaching for the floppy disk, he slides it into the computer. Fixes his gaze on the screen and tries desperately not to look away at the sight of Saeran’s eyes, bright and innocent. 

Nothing like the Saeran he had just seen.

“He looks just like you,” she says quietly, a hand reaching out as if to trace the wide brilliant smile on his face. Saeyoung remembers Rika’s narration - _He had just seen a canary, Luciel. He said it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life._

That memory had sustained him for two years. He would have given up everything to let Saeran smile.

A hand traces the cross he wears around his neck. Hadn’t he?

He shakes himself out of it and, almost mechanically, fills her in on the details. She’s standing way too close. He can’t pull himself away. 

As he finishes speaking Jiyeon reaches for his other hand, curls it in her own. “I can’t begin to imagine what that burden feels like.” When he glances at her she’s looking straight back at him. “Thank you for telling me. You’re not carrying it alone anymore.”

His eyes widen. Saeyoung attempts to rip his hand back, but she doesn’t let go. “Seven. Let me walk with you.”

“I _can’t._ ” His voice cracks traitorously, but he doesn’t try again. When Jiyeon rubs circles into his palm he lets her. “The people I work for - they’ll hurt you. I can’t promise you I’ll still be here tomorrow. I’ve - I’ve disappeared once, Jiyeon.” He forces himself to look at her, pleading. “I’ll have to do it again.”

The acceptance in her eyes is more than he can bear. “You know,” he confesses brokenly. “The worst thing is that I already know - when I’m gone again, when I disappear - I want you to remember me.”

“I can do that, Seven,” she murmurs, tugging him gently into a standing position. “I would never forget you.”

His mind is a crash of waves; desperately, he tries to reach for the logic that is drowning beneath the cresting tide. “I’m not supposed to,” he tells her, even as she knocks their foreheads together lightly. Her grip on his forearms is firm. Real. “I don’t deserve your -“

“Love?” Jiyeon cuts in, tone suddenly breezy, and in that word there is for him a world of want. “But you have it, Seven.” She draws back, knocks their foreheads together again “It’s yours.”

The world stills on its axis, and the sound of the blood in his ears is so loud he forgets how to breathe. _Can I really have this?_ he wonders, searching her eyes. _Be loved?_

“You don’t even know me,” he says, against his will. 

“Then you should at least give me a chance to,” Jiyeon quips.

She reaches up and thumbs his cheek, smiling so privately and with such unabashed fondness that his heart washes through with guilt. “You’re thinking too hard,” she tells him. “What do you want?”

He doesn’t dare to say it. He knows the answer. Knows, too, that if he says it, she will stay.

Hadn’t he promised they would go to the moon someday?

“ _Seven._ ”

“You,” he confesses, squeezing his eyes shut. Something breaks clean inside him. “I can’t, but - but it’s you. If God will let me - for as long as I can, Jiyeon - I want you by my side.”

“Hey.” Gentle fingers prise his eyes open. Cradle his face. “You have me.”

 _That’s what I’m afraid of,_ he doesn’t say. She is so beautiful it hurts. He reaches for her wrists, covers her hands with his own. 

It’s too late to keep up his charade. And even if it weren’t - he’s selfish, isn’t he? Couldn’t he have this - just once?

“I’ll keep you safe,” he murmurs, maybe more for his sake than hers. “I won’t hurt you again.”

She laughs, abruptly. “That’s not possible, silly,” she scolds him. “But you have to promise you’ll let me stay with you as long as I can.”

He doesn’t understand how somebody so logical could possibly fail to see all the ways this could go wrong. He pulls her hands away from his face, links their fingers together and watches her for a moment. _She’ll understand,_ he realises. If he really wants to make her turn from him - he’s sure she’ll thank him for it, someday.

“Hey,” she says, tugging on his shirt sleeve forcefully. “You agreed. No backsies.”

But he can’t do it. She’s given him hope, that dangerous thing; Seven inhales very deeply, holds it for a few counts, and lets it back out. 

“Okay,” he says. It sounds like a prayer. “I promise.”

She smiles. For now, it's enough.


End file.
